Knowledge workers are overwhelmed by information. They are swamped with more and more messages in traditional information sources (protocols), such as email, and solutions providers are giving them new applications and new information sources—instant messaging, social software like Facebook, and “syndicated feeds”. Often a particular application or source type has a measure of interest to the user that is different from other applications/sources. In general, emails, because they are generally directed “at” the user are more compelling than feeds broadcast generally. However, this distinction is not always true. A spam email holds considerably less interest for the user than a particular newsfeed item related to that user's job goals, for instance.
Email inboxes are cluttered. IBM (International Business Machines, Inc—Assignee) has tried several ways to remove some of the clutter to other services or venues, including Cattail (to share files without sending the files through email), activities, teamrooms, Quickr. Similar experiments and services have been tried and commercialized outside of IBM.
Where possible, people have used machine-readable feeds (e.g., Really Simple Syndication (RSS) and Atom Syndication Format) and feed readers for certain types of information. There is art known in gmail for providing access to mail content via a syndication format (e.g. Atom/RSS). This strategy has two advantages. First, messages that might have cluttered email are now in a more appropriate medium. Second, the feed reader has its own UI (user interface) affordances that make dealing with this type of information easier.